Do we like Elizabeth May?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Nothing harmful in her own words turned up, she's paid a price for her principles, and the main marks against her are a denied staff complaint and one vote she calls a mistake.
Elizabeth May is the face of the Canadian Greens, an MP and long-time leader who built her name on climate. She announced in August 2025 that she'd step down once a successor is elected, and she plans to keep serving as an MP. Honestly, the pages we could open say little about her early years, so this one is built mostly from the last decade.
The story that sums her up is March 2018, when she stood at the gates of Kinder Morgan's Burnaby site in breach of a court injunction. She was arrested, pleaded guilty to criminal contempt and was fined $1,500 in B.C. Supreme Court. She said she'd promised three First Nations she'd back their opposition to the pipeline, and told the court she'd chosen civil disobedience and accepted the consequences. Not many party leaders cop a criminal record-adjacent fine on purpose.
The messier chapter came in January 2018, when three former staff alleged to the Toronto Star that she created a hostile workplace by yelling at and insulting them, and the Hill Times reported similar claims from seven former employees. The party called the accusers “disgruntled former staff”, and May denied being abusive. She asked for an independent probe led by lawyer Sheila Block, and the Star later reported the harassment complaints against her were dismissed. That's a contested allegation that went through a process, not a proven pattern.
On the harm check, nothing nasty from her turned up. Her 2019 platform pledged to ban conversion therapy, improve access to gender-affirming health services and end the lifetime blood donation ban for gay men. She said that as a cisgender woman she had to “walk the talk” in solidarity with the community. We found no harmful statements of her own in what we could open, though that's a thinner record than we'd like.
The recent stoush is her November 2025 vote for the Carney government's budget. She says Steven Guilbeault, then a minister, assured her enhanced oil recovery credits wouldn't be added, and Carney signed an Alberta deal 10 days later that extended them. She called it a “significant betrayal and a reversal” and said “I will not make that mistake again”. Her vote wasn't decisive, and she says she doesn't regret it because the budget kept Canada's Paris commitments.
Her own side has been restless too. In September 2025 more than 40 members signed an open letter urging Greens to remove her as leader, saying it was time for “new voices and new ideas”. May argued that ousting her early would “create disruption and increase costs”. The pages we opened don't give the result of that review, but she's now leaving on a set timetable anyway.